


i ain't afraid of no ghost

by smoakoverwatch



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Halloween, Haunted House, Sad Attempts at Humor, awkward exes who work together, i guess kind of, i tried to restrain myself on the pop culture references
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-10
Updated: 2016-10-10
Packaged: 2018-08-21 17:31:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8254333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smoakoverwatch/pseuds/smoakoverwatch
Summary: prompt: olicity + haunted house





	

**Author's Note:**

> prompt from tumblr: Olicity + haunted house
> 
> Idk what happened here, but I wanted to be a little creative with this one. Hope this works!!! I’m new to the prompts game.  
> I had fun writing this. Which is not something I’ve said often in the past few months. I even managed to sneak in a Drake reference.   
> Set in the oh so wonderfully ambiguous season five.
> 
> (Not the most polished work, so sorry for any errors)
> 
> Happy Thanksgiving to my fellow Canadians!

It’s one of those things Oliver learned early on in his time knowing her.

Felicity Smoak loves her holidays.

Everything, right down to cheesy dollar store decorations, it seems.

That’s why these days when he enters the lair, he ducks under some low hanging cotton cobwebs and trips over a plastic spider because, “ _it’s almost Halloween, Oliver! Live a little!”_

She loves holidays. And really, the major holidays have been interrupted by the scum of Star City the past few times, so he can deal with the weird plastic skeleton that hangs from the salmon ladder.

He loosens his tie as he walks towards Felicity, who is hunched over her monitors with her eyebrows furrowed. She’s been working on something the past few days but has kept more quiet about it than Oliver’s comfortable with.

” _I have a theory, but I don’t want to give it to you just yet. I need to do a little bit of research. Don’t worry about it. You’re late for that meeting.”_

It’s not usually how they operate, and it makes him feel antsy.

“How’s that theory coming along?” he says as he nears her.

He assumed she heard him come in. apparently not, however, since she jumps out of her chair and turns to glare at him.

He winces and mouths an apology before they both turn their attention back to the screen. Across the monitors Oliver sees a variation of information. Photographs he doesn’t recognize, newspaper articles on missing people in the Glades, and what looks like a few personal blogs (Felicity’s taught him enough about web design to know the black background and red text make them pretty amateur). At a glance, he doesn’t see the connection between all the things he has open.

“I’ve been working on my theory all day; I think I might have a lead.” She pauses for a moment, her neck craned up to look at him. She has an excited sparkle in her eye, one he hasn’t seen in a while, so he nods at her to continue.

“For the past month, there have been some missing teens in the Glades, all around this one specific neighborhood.” She points an orange fingernail at the map she has open on one screen. “because of the lack of funding in the police department you’re all too familiar with, they’re all unresolved. I’ve been doing some reading, and there’s one abandoned house that some people have said is haunted.”

His eyebrows furrow at this, and his eyes briefly flicker to all the Halloween paraphernalia around them “Okay…”

“Hear me out.” She holds up a hand, unbothered by his growing skepticism. “There’s also been some incomplete investigation around suspected drug activity in that area, and some suspicion that the abandoned house was being used as a drop site.”

_Now we’re talking._

“So these missing kids…”

“Have gone lurking around haunted places for fun not knowing what they’re getting into.” She completes his thoughts with a grim expression. “That’s exactly what I think, yes. And I think with Halloween coming up, more bored teenagers are going to want to go here for laughs and run into things that mean they won’t come back.” She gestures to the blogs, where he can now read entries of people making these missing people reports into evidence of haunting.

“And that’s where we come in.” he says, tucking his hands in his pockets. She’s nodding before he even finishes the sentence.

“That’s where we come in,” she repeats. “I wanted to start by just getting some intel on the activity there by surveillance, but it’s not like there’s any eyes in that area for me to hack into.”

She looks weirdly nervous, at this point, which he finds odd. “Okay, so, I can do some patrolling for the next few nights to get an idea.”

“I actually,” she pauses to purse her lips. His apprehension grows. “I had an easier idea, since I know you have a whole bunch of appearances lined up this week as Mayor. I was thinking I could just set up some of my tech there and we’ll be able to monitor anytime we need.”

“Okay…” He’s not entirely comfortable with the idea, but he knows better than to immediately shut Felicity down if he doesn’t want her to do something.

“Only thing is,” her tone shifts from thoughtful to one nearing a ramble. “I obviously can’t go around setting up cameras and sensors all over the place in broad daylight. But I’m also not stupid enough to go down there by myself at night. And honestly, I don’t trust you enough to do this by yourself as the Green Arrow.” He’s only mildly offended, but he knows from the Mayor Office Bugging Incident of Summer Sixteen (Felicity’s words), that she’s probably right.

“So that means…”

“We’re going to visit a haunted house together.” She smiles.

* * *

 

It’s not at all what he’d expect something like this to go.

Well, first he thought Felicity would be more creeped out by the entire thing than she actually is. In fact, she shows up that night with a grin on her face.

“I never really did the whole haunted house on Halloween thing!” she tries to explain. “I could never find someone willing to go with me. And I know it’s not _technically_ Halloween for another week but – “

“Felicity,” he says in a low voice, tugging uncomfortably on his hood.

“Right.” She straightens her back. “Focus. Job to do. This is totally not fun at all for me.”

He fights the tugging at the corners of his mouth as they keep walking. Despite her words, she has a bounce in her step as she moves forward, her smile is almost childlike.

Once they get inside, he pretends to ignore her mutter, “oh this is so cool,” at the sight of what really could be the poster kid for abandoned houses.

He looks around the space for any signs of suspicious activity before he sees it.

Felicity is too busy humming the _Ghostbusters_ theme song (which he only recognizes because she dragged him to see the remake this summer) while she untangles some wires to notice.

“Felicity,” he says softly. She doesn’t hear him.

“Felicity,” he repeats a little louder this time, his eyes trained on the door.

“ _Who you gonna call –_ Oh, sorry! What’s wrong?”

“Do you see what I’m seeing,” he talks under his breath now, choking out one word at a time.

She follows his line of sight, visibly terrified. “Oh frack. Oh my god. That door is moving.”

“Yep,” he says quietly, reaching to his quiver.

“Okay.” Any traces of amusement that was previously there is gone from her voice, replaced with fear. “Everything I said about haunted houses was wrong, totally wrong, I’m an idiot, this was a bad idea.”

He doesn’t answer, his ears trained on any other movements that could be coming from the house.

Both Oliver and Felicity are completely still, so he tenses when he hears the floorboards creek.

“Felicity,” his voice now resembles the growl of his alter ego, “Get. Behind me.”

Felicity doesn’t argue at all, and shakily shuffles so that she stands behind him, her head craning to peek over his leather clad shoulder.

The sound continues, and now the chipped wooden door groans as it moves. Behind him, Felicity lets out a sharp gasp and brings a hand to his arm.

It’s just a little distracting. He has to force those thoughts out of his mind, however, as the door opens wider. He gets his bow and arrow in position, tilting his body to cover Felicity from whoever walks through that door.

Once again, the wooden floor creaks underneath them, as Oliver can barely make out a black figure that emerges, until just a foot off the ground he sees a pair of glowing green eyes.

It’s a cat.

He lowers his bow immediately and lets out a chuckle mixed with a sigh of relief. At the sound, Felicity pokes her head past him.

“What is it?” her voice is still laced with fear, and it makes him feel a little bad for laughing.

“It’s a,” he pauses and gestures at the animal, his chuckle now turned into peals of laughter he really couldn’t stop if he tried.

She lets out a grunt of frustration and points her flashlight in its direction.

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

And then they’re both laughing, not entirely able to stop themselves. It isn’t long before Felicity is hunched over, holding her stomach. In the dim light he thinks he can see her eyes shining from mirth.

It doesn’t go unnoticed by either of them that they really can’t remember the last time they’ve laughed this hard.

“You had me actually thinking that we’d see—” he chokes out.

“For a minute I was so sure it _was_ one!” she exclaims, moving a hand behind her glasses to swipe the wetness.

They both manage to subdue their giggles (he’s not above admitting that, yes, he really is just giggling at this point). He shakes his head. “All your talk about haunted houses got to me and I really don’t know what I was thinking.”

She nudges him with her shoulder as they both make their way to leave the house, in silent agreement that their task for tonight was a lost cause. “I can’t believe you were going to knock this hypothetical ghost out with your arrows.”

He smiles sheepishly and shrugs. “Well you know me, I’m not afraid of any ghosts.”

She sighs exasperatedly, but still grinning widely. “I _know_ you know that isn’t the line.”  

“You know,” he says casually once they get in the van, “I’m sure if I called Constantine up he can find us an _actual_ haunted house.”

She pauses and looks at him with wide eyes.

“If you’re game, of course.” He continues, climbing in the passenger seat.

When she pulls herself into the opposite side of the car, she has the brightest smile he’s seen in months on her face. He would do anything to keep it there. “You’re on.”

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed! Please leave a comment if you did. 
> 
>  
> 
> twitter: smoakoverwatch  
> tumblr: overwatchandarrow


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